s. The upper part appeared
to be made of corrugated metal, but, as with the matter of the legs,
it was impossible to separate what was actually seen and what was
merely inferred. The only other structures Dewforth had seen which
resembled it at all were water towers and shipyard cranes, but these
had been mere toys compared with the thing that hovered over the
center of the city.

Its purpose could not be guessed, but what disturbed Dewforth more was
the fact that he could not be sure that it existed. He was a precision
draftsman, more or less resigned to deteriorating eyesight, and his
usual abstracted state of mind during that segment of his day had also
to be considered. He hoped that someone else would mention the
structure. Once--only once--a man sitting on the opposite seat had
made a comment which could have applied to it. "It turned," he said,
just as the tunnel swallowed the train.

Dewforth would have liked to ask the other passenger what he had
meant. Had he seen the same thing? Had he seen anything at all? And
what had he meant by "turned"?

But he had not asked. The other had been not merely forbidding, not
merely repugnant, but alternately forbidding and repugnant--in
daylight, an impeccable burgher sitting tall and righteous under a
tall hat; in tunnels, a hunchbacked gargoyle picking its nose in the
fickle darkness.

If Dewforth had been the only passenger on the train, or indeed the
last man in the world, he could not have been more alone with his
wonder. You did not ask whimsical questions of strangers nowadays. You
did not ask many questions of friends. All uncertainties incubated in
private darkness; they lived and grew and even put forth new
appendages.

Not a building. Not a water tank. Not a crane. Perhaps it was only an
illusion.

Illusion or not, it wanted a name so that it might be at least
catalogued in his own mind. Therefore, on a morning since forgotten
and for reasons never closely examined, he decided to call it The
Control Tower.

II

There was an unholy Friday restlessness upon Dewforth. To make matters
worse, it was the last Friday in March. Logically, perhaps, this
should not have made any difference because Dewforth worked in one of
a number of identical windowless rooms in a building from which all
natural rhythms had been rigorously excluded. From skylights high in
the ceilings of the drafting rooms came a light which had been
pasteurized and was timeless. It c